ARM’s New CEO Relishes Intel Competition.

ARM’s new CEO expects that competing with Intel will help him get his brain into gear in the mornings.

Asked, earlier today, how he felt about competing with Intel, Simon Segars, who to takes over from Warren East as CEO of ARM in July, replied: “Competition is always good – it keeps you on your toes. When you get up in the morning it gives you something to think about.”

Segars added that he “was not complacent” about having Intel as a competitor, but pointed out that ARM had an almost 100% market share in tablets and that ARM expected, this year, that more tablets would be sold than PCs.

In fact analysts IDC report that the PC market is declining much faster than expected with a 7.7% decline expected in Q1.

Warren East says he “hasn’t got anything specific to say” about what he’s going to do after July. “I’ve been 30 years in the semiconductor industry and I’m almost bound to stay connected,” he said, adding that he’s “passionate about UK technology” and that’s the area he’s going to stay in.

East added that he’s not going to stay connected to ARM in any way as a board member or anything like that. Asked if he would be keeping any ARM connections he replied: “None whatsoever, this is a clean break.”

The only reason he gives for going now is that the company’s in a healthy state, the company is planning now for 2020-timescale outcomes and that, by the time 2020 comes along, he would have been in the CEO job for 20 years.

“It’s not healthy for a person to stay on that long,” he said, “better to go when the business is in a healthy state.”

He said the decision to hand over had been building up for a while and that Segars will be taking over when the meetings to fix next year’s budget start in the mid-year.

Asked to compare and contrast ARM’s snappy CEO switch-over with Intel’s long drawn-out, six month, still unresolved, selection process, East said: “Ours was more controlled than the Intel process.”

Doing it ARM’s way removes the prospect of doubts and uncertainties arising about the business.